Do you manage the limitations or do the limitations manage you?
Date: 2024-05-16 13:02
Lots of work done, little results
We work hard, learn quickly and have enough capacity at our disposal with six realization teams. Fortunately, we also see this reflected in the services provided. Almost all services to perform the database approaches are ready and the services that perform the compositions are also making good progress. And then during the preparation for the PI planning event we see that dashboard again, where we can't suppress a short laugh every time, but we wish we could. After three years, only a few tasks left in production and so much more to go.
The goal
In the book The Goal, the main character Alex, factory director, accompanies his son's boy scout camp as a supervisor. The boy scouts have to make a journey of fifteen kilometers where they have to walk one after the other. One boy leaves gaps. Herbie, who is a bit overweight and carrying a big heavy backpack, can't keep up the pace. Herbie follows behind to walk at his own pace. But of course the group won't arrive earlier this way. Alex decides that Herbie should lead the way, despite protests from the other boy scouts. He asks the boy scouts to think about how to make Herbie walk faster. They take up a large part of the backpack. Finally they arrive on time.
The Constraint Theory
Eli Goldratt, management guru and author of the book The Goal defines the following main rules:
- identify the bottleneck
- exploit it to the maximum
- subordinate everything to this decision
- increase the capacity of the bottleneck
- Start again with step 1
The theory and the IT architect
The theory applies not only to production lines but also to the creation of software. According to Goldratt, this is more than a business technique. It's a way of thinking about complexity.
Complexity and software...isn't this an important task for the IT architect?
We have now found Herbie, things that we previously did manually have been automated and an external consultant has been hired to join us. And that dashboard? We can still laugh about that later, but with pride.
Sources:
- MBA in one day, Ben Tiggelaar & Joel Aarts, 2012.